A female resident has died in a fire at a care home for people with learning disabilities.

More than 70 firefighters tackled the blaze at the flats in Chingford, north-east London, just before 2.15am on Friday.

Richard Janssens from the London fire brigade said a female resident had died by the time they arrived. She is believed to have been in her 30s.

“The fire was complicated because of the fatality and the fact the roof had caught fire, so it had to be tackled from the inside and outside, but firefighters got it under control quickly,” Janssens said.

Parts of the ground and first floors were damaged by fire and the second floor and roof were completely destroyed in the three-storey block on Connington Crescent, the fire brigade said.

Twelve people had left the building before firefighters arrived and a further 16 had been evacuated from neighbouring properties.

Iain Duncan Smith, the MP for Chingford and Woodford Green, described the incident as a “terrible tragedy” and said his “heart goes out to the victims”.

He said: “There’s an investigation going on, so I can’t go too far into it, but she [the neighbour] saw all the smoke coming out and saw them all running around the place. She asked has anyone called the fire brigade and they said no because they didn’t know what the number was.

“She called the fire brigade and it was thanks to her swift action I suspect, that not more than one life was lost.”

He went on: “It’s a home that deals with people with learning difficulties, so they are very vulnerable and often need the best kind of protection, and we’ll be wanting to know that a proper investigation takes place to find out what happened.”

Pictures from the scene showed flames pouring out of the roof of the building.

The block houses Connington Court and Connington House, which are both run by Sequence Care and provide services to support adults with autism and other complex needs or behaviours. The residents who escaped the blaze were taken to another care home run by the same company. The cause of the fire is not yet known.